Everything but the Kitchen Sink
by Just the Wind
Summary: LBD Universe! She tells herself it's because they're different, that he's introverted and she, she spent the past year of her life telling tens of thousands of people every single bit of drama that came her way. She tells herself things will be different when he comes home, things will be better. She doesn't believe a lot of the things she tells herself. Now a chaptered fic!
1. Chapter 1

**I'm totally obsessed with the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. I'm not (and probably never will be) into things that are happy and lovely and gushy and romantic. So, I'm sorry in advance for ruining all the Dizzie highs that are still hanging around from Ep 99.**

**Word count: 1,338**

Her fingers hover over the screen and she taps out a few words, erases them immediately, and then returns to staring at the empty message box that reads "iMessage" with a blinking cursor.

_I'm sorry_, maybe, or _I love you._ More probably: _I don't know how to do any of this so please tell me if I make you happy because who you are is very different from who I am and I never know where I stand with you._

She doesn't send anything and the damn cursor stays blinking long after she's lost the ability to fathom any words.

He is wonderful. Infuriating. Charming. Everything she could've dreamed of and- and more? Or less. Decidedly less.

She settles for typing out: _Talking to you is like throwing everything but the kitchen sink against a brick wall and hoping some of it will stick, or at least bruise._

She deletes the words the moment they show up black against the stark white screen. _I'm sorry,_ she tries again, _I don't know how to do this sometimes_.

His voice is like silk when he's talking to her, but the boy has a strange aversion to phones and can't be away from business for long, so here they are. Texting. And it makes her feel like a teenager, lovesick or heartbroken or maybe just a little confused. She's probably just confused, she tells herself, just a little lost because she's never done this before. All those reasons Lydia listed why she was "Perpetually single!" (she can almost hear Lydia's voice climbing in pitch, smiling the way she used to before... Smiling so big and flat the way she used to before everything.) were reasons why she used to be single and now she's not and it's different. Not bad different, not bad at all. She likes the way his lips taste when she stands on her tiptoes to kiss him and she likes the low rumble in his throat when she runs her fingers over his tie and she likes him, how solid a presence he is, like an anchor or a rock that keeps her sane even when her thesis is due in two weeks and she feels like melting into a puddle of "not this, not today, not gonna happen."

She doesn't like how it feels like he builds walls between them out of the miles and she's always reaching so far but he never reaches back. She tells herself it's because they're different, that he's introverted and she, she spent the past year of her life telling tens of thousands of people every single bit of drama that came her way. She tells herself that she needs to say things aloud to process them but he doesn't, and so his silence doesn't indicate that he's not feeling anything, but that he's just being himself.

She doesn't believe a lot of the things she tells herself.

It'd be easier, she says to him, to everyone, to herself, if he were closer. But he's not and sometimes things are so impossibly hard that her heart feels like lead.

Her phone pings, a message showing from a "Will Darcy" lighting the screen. _Me neither. _She exhales loudly and contemplates crying but settles for wracking her brain for a response.

It's a frightening thought that's been popping to her head too frequently as of late. They're too different, maybe, and it's easy to blame the miles and it's easy to blame the videos, but maybe the problem is them. Maybe the problem is that she's a girl with a loud voice and pale skin and he's a boy who wears bowties and serious faces and they don't fit as well as she thought they-

No. They'll be fine. It's just the distance.

_I'll be home in two days,_ a new message from him informs her, _I can fly out to see you, if you'd like._

_Yes, please_, she responds and it's as if a hundred pounds have been lifted off of her aching shoulders. A moment's pause, the message shows a grey "delivered" underneath. She types some more, _I miss you, _and hits "send."

Oh! does she miss him. Sometimes her lungs feel disconnected from her body and there's more work to be done (always more work to be done) than there are hours in the day. Charlotte's far away and Jane's gone and Lydia's amazing but not- Lydia's not him. She didn't know there could be a hole in her heart where he was supposed to fit, but she supposes there is because it feels as though an artery's been punctured right where he's meant to be. Who knew being in love felt so much like unsuccessful open heart surgery?

_I love you, _his words show up, another message sounding at the tail of that one, _I'm sorry things have been busy lately. It'll get better._

She mouths the words to herself and tries to imagine the shape of his lips pulling into the small smile he gives her every time he says it. "I love you," she sighs with her own imaginings, "I love you, Lizzie Bennet, I love you."

The daydreaming pulls red to her cheeks and she realizes that she needs to text him back and so she says _I know_, though she doesn't, she doesn't really know. She doesn't know that he loves her because it's too easy to think about the dozens of Caroline Lee's he sees every day and it's too easy for him to say it'll get better because, because what if it doesn't? What if this is as good as it gets and 'this' is the constant feeling that she's missing what she's supposed to be doing, that she and he are two trains or boats (or whatever the metaphor's supposed to be) passing in the night?

She doesn't know when she first lied to him, but she's been doing it daily as of late. It's not that she doesn't love him, it's just that she doesn't know what love is anymore because she hasn't seen his face in two months and she hasn't brushed her fingers over one of those silky ties in what feels like an eternity.

_I'm tired, _she texts him and he tells her to go to sleep, as if it's that easy, as if she's not tired all the way down to her bones because loving a quiet man from far way is zapping away every last reserve of energy she thought she had.

_I'll see you soon,_ he promises and she knows he'll keep his word.

It'll be worth it, she tells herself, when he's here. Every long night with an empty bed and hours of panging longing, it'll be worth it. He'll be here and it'll be worth it. Maybe she just has a tendency to forget what's not immediately in front of her, and maybe seeing him will make her stomach stop feeling so hollow and she'll be able to breathe again without feeling like she'll cry and she won't lie to him anymore ever. She tells herself that it'll get better, it'll be alright.

She doesn't know if she believes it, but it's late and she should rest. She closes her eyes and tries to think of all the things she could say that'd make it feel less like they were seeing each other through a pane of foggy glass.

She can't find any words, so instead she finds sleep. Tomorrow, maybe, she'll ask him if he means it when he says he loves her, she'll admit that she's never quite sure. She'll confess that she can't tell if she needs him closer right this instant or if they'd be better for never speaking again. Tomorrow.

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	2. Chapter 2

**This started getting follows and I got really confused. I mean, don't you all know that I just shoot off one shots and never, ever write any full series? Gosh, how dare you expect more!**

**But then...Um. Well, here's more to the story. Maybe I'll keep writing it, I haven't quite decided. Reviews will help speed chapters along, if they're going to happen at all.**

**Word count: 1324**

**Listen to: "Hazy," Rosi Golan **

He's up late and he's drinking.

"Again?" Gigi pads into the kitchen, warily eyeing the beer in his hand. He sighs a response. "Long day?" she asks and, at his nod, wraps her arms around his waist. He leans into her and exhales deeply. "It's okay to feel things, William," she says into his chest and he chuckles.

She smells like strawberries, the fragrance of her shampoo so uniquely 'Gigi' that the silly little scent feels more like home than this whole apartment. "You should go to bed," he tells her and now she's the one laughing.

"I'm old enough to determine my own bedtime, William." And to prove it, she swipes his beer and takes a perfectly legal swig.

He wrestles it from her grip and gives her a stern look. "Goodnight, Gigi." She smiles at him and it's as if they're children again, as if the past fifteen years haven't happened and they're just two kids in the kitchen in the middle of the night.

"She misses you, too," she softly whispers and he knows that she knows that it's all he's been thinking about. What reason, as his father would've said, is there for staying up past midnight if not for a woman?

With one last thoughtful look, she kisses his cheek and leaves for bed.

He exhales into the silence and disposes of the brown bottle in favor of an empty bed.

The next day is more of the same and he doesn't know if he can stand it anymore. It's meetings all day, texting Lizzie under his desk as if he's worried of being exposed for not paying enough mind to his work. In truth, he's definitely not paying enough mind to his work and it's most definitely because of Lizzie, but this is his company, he keeps reminding himself, and he can afford one day of a wandering mind.

He eats lunch in his office, smiling as Gigi drops in "just because" (her code for 'I'm worried about you, William, and want to make sure you're eating and socializing at least a little bit'). They make idle chatter over their salads and it's hard to tell who's happier to see Fitz when he drops by with the suggestion that they all grab dinner together.

He could use dinner out, time spent talking to someone who isn't Gigi and thinking about someone who isn't Lizzie. Fitz may be the world's worst wingman, but he's also the best friend he has, so he looks forward to the evening ahead with something that might be considered glee, but could be more aptly labeled satisfaction.

Lizzie would laugh at that, he thinks and a wistful smile creeps to his face before he can expel it. Lizzie would laugh at the reserve in his emotions and the way he can't just be happy, but instead feels things in halves. She'd laugh at how much of a shut-in he's become and he'd like to tell her, like to know that he was making her laugh, but it's never come up in conversation and so she doesn't know.

Truthfully, not much has come up in conversation as of late. Maybe, he thinks, he should have Fitz decode Lizzie's texts. After all, Fitz could probably catch on better than Mr. Agoraphobic Lobster. All he knows is that she's tired, she's said that she's tired more frequently lately than ever, and she misses him. He attributes the former to her thesis work and doesn't know what to make of the latter aside from to say that responding with _I miss you too_ as he's done time and time again is the understatement of the year.

To say that he misses Lizzie Bennet is to say that a drowning man misses a breath of air, that a starving woman misses a bite of food, or that a dehydrated person misses a drop of water. He misses Lizzie Bennet the way his heart misses blood when it stalls at the thought of her. He misses Lizzie Bennet in more than an idle way, and missing Lizzie Bennet is becoming a full time occupation.

And that's about where his thoughts are when his real full time occupation interrupts in the form of a cleared throat in a silent meeting room. With well-hidden embarrassment, he realizes that a room full of eyes are staring at him, all filled with a questioning expression. "Well, Mr. Darcy?" the woman at the whiteboard asks. He glances over the schematic she's drawn in red.

"I think it's a worthwhile idea, Cathy," he says, clearing his throat and giving her a small smile, "but we need to make it simpler. Don't try to go too big on Domino yet, it needs to be effective rather than fancy."

It appears that he's said just the right thing because she smiles in understanding and tells him that they should then cut off one of the features and focus the most on... well, what does he think they should focus the most on right now? "Communication," he answers with a firm voice, "we can dominate this market if we make sure to have the best call quality as intuitively as possible."

There's a smattering of applause and he's not surprised when Gigi shoots him a look, a look that says 'I know exactly what just happened and I'm not buying it for a moment.' He shrugs his shoulders in apology and she lightly rolls her eyes and he realizes all over again how lucky he is to have her in his life.

The meeting ends an hour later and she sidles up to him. "I know," he says before she can open her mouth and she tilts her head to the right, quizzically. "I promise to be more focused in the future." For a moment he reflects how humorous it is that here he is, CEO and business legend, and his kid sister can still make him feel like a student caught in the act of cheating on an exam.

"Oh," she giggles, "I'm more upset that you focus at all. Go call your girlfriend, Will. Better yet, buy tickets to see her next week. Oh! Mom's ring is in the safe, bring that when-"

"Gigi," he interrupts, "I'm not bringing Mom's ring. I just got her. I'm not going to ruin it by going too fast. And besides, I thought you'd want it when the time comes."

She gives him a long look that he can't quite read. "It's hers when you're ready," she says after a long moment, "and I don't think being ready sooner rather than later is a bad thing."

He sighs, "we'll see." And she smiles in reply.

Dinner is in a diner that Fitz exclaims they "just have to try!" and their incredulous looks are quickly proven wrong when the food comes. Gigi's egg cream is "just perfection" and he can't even claim that his eggs- as greasy as they may be- aren't delicious.

He sits back and listens to Gigi and Fitz chatter, talking about nothing really at a mile a minute. His chest aches a little bit when he realizes how much Lizzie would love this place, this old diner with red stools and bright blue tables that right now are occupied with all the family he has. He pulls his cellphone from his pocket to send a text that reads _Found the perfect dinner spot for when you're here next._

A moment later his phone lights up with her response: _I can't wait._

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